PAY TO PLAY. A BILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY

Pay to Play at a higher level has become more common these days. Promises of scholarships, high draft pick spots, etc. are used to justify the large sums of money that parents are spending on the training of their youngsters. Below is an article from the NY Times that should provoke some new thinking on the value of such training at early ages.

How Kids’ Sports Became a $15 Billion Industry

Sean Gregory

Aug 23, 2017

Joey Erace knocks pitch after pitch into the netting of his $15,000 backyard batting cage, the pings from his metal bat filling the air in the south New Jersey cul-de-sac. His private hitting coach, who's charging $100 for this hour-long session, tells Joey to shorten his stride. He's accustomed to such focused instruction: the evening batting practice followed a one-on-one fielding lesson in Philadelphia earlier in the day, which cost another $100.

Relentless training is essential for a top player who suits up for nationally ranked teams based in Texas and California, thousands of miles from home. But Joey has talents that scouts covet, including lightning quickness with a rare knack for making slight adjustments at the plate--lowering a shoulder angle, turning a hip--to drive the ball. "He has a real swagger," says Joey's hitting coach, Dan Hennigan, a former minor leaguer. "As long as he keeps putting in this work, he's going to be a really, really solid baseball player at a really, really high level."

Already, Joey has a neon-ready nickname--Joey Baseball--and more than 24,000 followers on Instagram. Jewelry and apparel companies have asked him to hawk their stuff. On a rare family vacation in Florida, a boy approached Joey in a restaurant and asked for his autograph. But Joey Baseball has yet to learn cursive. He is, after all, only 10 years old. They snapped a picture instead.

Joey Erace is an extreme example of what has become a new reality for America's aspiring young athletes and their families. Across the nation, kids of all skill levels, in virtually every team sport, are getting swept up by a youth-sports economy that increasingly resembles the pros at increasingly early ages. Neighborhood Little Leagues, town soccer associations and church basketball squads that bonded kids in a community--and didn't cost as much as a rent check--have largely lost their luster. Little League participation, for example, is down 20% from its turn-of-the-century peak. These local leagues have been nudged aside by private club teams, a loosely governed constellation that includes everything from development academies affiliated with professional sports franchises to regional squads run by moonlighting coaches with little experience. The most competitive teams vie for talent and travel to national tournaments. Others are elite in name only, siphoning expensive participation fees from parents of kids with little hope of making the high school varsity, let alone the pros.

The cost for parents is steep. At the high end, families can spend more than 10% of their income on registration fees, travel, camps and equipment. Joe Erace, who owns a salon and spas in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, says Joey's budding baseball career has cost north of $30,000. A volleyball dad from upstate New York spent $20,000 one year on his daughter's club team, including plenty on gas: up to four nights a week she commuted 2½ hours round-trip for practice, not getting home until 11:30 p.m. That pales beside one Springfield, Mo., mom, who this summer regularly made a seven-hour round-trip journey to ferry her 10- and 11-year-old sons to travel basketball practice. Others hand their children over entirely. A family from Ottawa sent their 13-year-old to New Jersey for a year, to increase his ice time on the travel hockey circuit. A sponsor paid the teen's $25,000 private-school tuition. This summer, 10 boys from across the U.S. stayed with host families in order to play for a St. Louis--based travel baseball club.

"It's definitely taken over everything," says Magali Sanchez, a legal records clerk from San Diego whose daughter Melanie Barcenas, 9, and son Xzavier Barcenas, 8, play travel soccer. To help pay for their fees, Sanchez's husband Carlos, a gas-station attendant, will spend 12 hours on a Saturday carting supplies at tournaments. Practice and tournaments overtake nights and weekends like kudzu--Sanchez says they often have to skip family weddings and kids' birthday parties. "This sports lifestyle is crazy," she says. "But they're your kids. You do anything for them."

A range of private businesses are mining this deep, do-anything parental love. The U.S. youth-sports economy--which includes everything from travel to private coaching to apps that organize leagues and livestream games--is now a $15.3 billion market, according to WinterGreen Research, a private firm that tracks the industry. And the pot is rapidly getting bigger. According to figures that WinterGreen provided exclusively to TIME, the nation's youth-sports industry has grown by 55% since 2010.

The numbers have been catnip for investors. A top NBA star and the billionaire owner of the NFL's most valuable team own equity in youth-sports startups. Major media and retail companies are investing in technology that manages peewee schedules. And municipalities that once vied for minor-league teams are now banking on youth sports to boost local economies, issuing bonds for lavish complexes that they hope will lure glove-toting tykes and their families.

There are upsides to the frenzy. Some kids thrive off intense competition, and the best players receive an unprecedented level of coaching and training. The travel circuit can also bring people of different backgrounds together in a way that local leagues by definition do not.

But as community-based teams give way to a more mercenary approach, it's worth asking what's lost in the process. Already, there are worrying signs. A growing body of research shows that intense early specialization in a single sport increases the risk of injury, burnout and depression. Fees and travel costs are pricing out lower-income families. Some kids who don't show talent at a young age are discouraged from ever participating in organized sports. Those who do often chase scholarships they have a minuscule chance of earning.

"For better or worse, youth sports is being privatized," says Jordan Fliegel, an entrepreneur who has capitalized on the shift. Whatever the answer is, the transition has been seismic, with implications for small towns, big businesses and millions of families.

“I love working hard,” says Joey Erace, 10, who lives in southern New Jersey but has suited up for baseball teams based in California and Texas. His Instagram account 
@joeybaseball12 has more than 24,000 followers. 

The United States Specialty Sports Association, or USSSA, is a nonprofit with 501(c)(4) status, a designation for organizations that promote social welfare. According to its most recent available IRS filings, it generated $13.7 million in revenue in 2015, and the CEO received $831,200 in compensation. The group holds tournaments across the nation, and it ranks youth teams in basketball, baseball and softball. The softball rankings begin with teams age 6 and under. Baseball starts at age 4.

Entering June, Joey Erace's Dallas-area team, the Texas Bombers, was third in the USSSA's 10-and-under baseball power ranking. The Alamo (Texas) Drillers were No. 1. This summer, Luke Martinez, 10, played second base for the Drillers. His family lives in a well-appointed mobile home in south San Antonio. Luke's mom Nalone cooks for a food truck. Luke's dad Jerry is a logistics coordinator at a printer and copier company. He works overtime whenever possible to save for Luke's frequent overnight trips across Texas and to Louisiana, North Carolina and Florida. The family has skipped car payments and put off home repairs to help.

Like millions of sports parents, the Martinezes hope that Luke's quick bat will lead to a college scholarship. There may be no single factor driving the professionalization of youth sports more than the dream of free college. With the cost of higher education skyrocketing--and athletic-department budgets swelling--NCAA schools now hand out $3 billion in scholarships a year. "That's a lot of chum to throw into youth sports," says Tom Farrey, executive director of the Aspen Institute's Sports & Society program. "It makes the fish a little bit crazy."

The odds are not in anyone's favor. Only 2% of high school athletes go on to play at the top level of college sports, the NCAA's Division I. For most, a savings account makes more sense than private coaching. "I've seen parents spend a couple of hundred thousand dollars pursuing a college scholarship," says Travis Dorsch, founding director of the Families in Sport Lab at Utah State University. "They could have set it aside for the damn college."

Still, the scholarship chase trickles down to every level. College coaches are now courting middle-schoolers, and competitive high school teams scout the club ranks. In some places, travel teams have supplanted high school squads as the priority for top players. Kids learn early that it's imperative to attend travel tournaments--and impress. Katherine Sinclair, 12, has played basketball games in Philadelphia and New York City on the same day, but she embraces the grind. "I don't have that long until I'm in eighth grade," she says. "That's when college scouts start looking at me. It's when I have to work my butt off."

The Internet has emerged as a key middleman, equal parts sorting mechanism and hype machine. For virtually every sport, there is a site offering scouting reports and rankings. Want to know the top 15-and-under girls' volleyball teams? PrepVolleyball.com has you covered (for a subscription starting at $37.95 per year). The basketball site middleschoolelite.com evaluates kids as young as 7 with no regard for hyperbole: a second-grader from Georgia is "a man among boys with his mind-set and skill set"; a third-grader from Ohio is "pro-bound."

Social-media-savvy parents now build Twitter and Instagram feeds around their young athletes. One such account calls itself "a brand inspired by my 11 yr old son's unique style and attitude on and off the Baseball Field."

Children sense that the stakes are rising. In a 2016 study published in the journal Family Relations, Dorsch and his colleagues found that the more money families pour into youth sports, the more pressure their kids feel--and the less they enjoy and feel committed to their sport.

Even well-meaning parents, meanwhile, can find themselves swept up. "You say to yourself, Am I keeping up?" says Rosemary Brewer, a nonprofit executive in Portland, Ore., who has mixed feelings about placing her two sons, 11 and 15, on travel lacrosse teams. "There's pressure, especially if your kids have some talent. You feel it a little more. But we want the kids to have fun and be with their friends. We have to take a step back and keep asking ourselves, What's the end goal?"

This parenting experience is new, given that the hypercharged kids' sports scene didn't exist on this scale just a few years ago. "When parents enter the youth-sports development complex, they're naive," says sports psychologist Jim Taylor. "They absorb the message they hear most: 'You mean, your kid's not playing on a travel team? She's not playing all the time? What's wrong?'" Taylor, who's writing a book about youth-sports parenting, has two daughters, 12 and 10, who ski and swim. "It's hard not to get sucked in," he says. "Even for someone like myself, a quote-unquote expert on this stuff. Because I'm human. I'm a dad."

King-Riley Owens, 9, who is ranked as a five-star prospect by the National Youth Basketball Report, lives in L.A. but has already played in tournaments in Utah, Texas and Nevada. His parents have used GoFundMe to help pay for the travel. If the NBA doesn’t work out, King-Riley wants to be a veterinarian.

There are few better places to take the measure of the youth-sports industrial complex than the Star, the gleaming, 91-acre, $1.5 billion new headquarters and practice facility of the Dallas Cowboys. Turn left upon entering the building and you'll find the offices of Blue Star Sports, a firm that has raised more than $200 million since April 2016 to acquire 18 companies that do things like process payments for club teams, offer performance analytics for seventh-grade hoops games and provide digital social platforms for young athletes.

Blue Star's investors include Bain Capital; 32 Equity, the investment arm of the NFL; and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who leases Blue Star space in his headquarters. The company's goal is to dominate all aspects of the youth-sports market, and it uses an affiliation with the pros to help. Blue Star's logo bears a not-coincidental resemblance to the one seen on national TV every Sunday, and the company's conference room has a view of the Jones family boardroom. The connection is clear for kids and investors alike.

Other major companies have also entered the fray. The national retailer Dick's Sporting Goods has acquired companies that specialize in online scheduling and score tracking for youth sports. Last year NBC bought Sport Ngin, a scheduling and social app that had raised $39 million in venture funding, and rechristened it SportsEngine. In August, SportsEngine launched a searchable directory of more than 100,000 youth-sports camps, teams and leagues. Time Inc., TIME's parent company, launched Sports Illustrated Play after acquiring three youth-sports-software startups. SI Play's apps now have 17 million monthly unique users. In the past 18 months, investors have plowed over $1 billion into the youth-sports market, according to SI Play CEO Jeff Karp.

The boom has given rise to countless entrepreneurial efforts, from new facilities to recruiting sites to private-coaching outfits. Even during the depths of the Great Recession, revenue for Travel Team USA, a company that books youth-sports travel, continued to double year over year. In 2012, entrepreneur Fliegel launched CoachUp, an app that connects young athletes with coaches. The NBA star Stephen Curry is an investor. "It doesn't hurt to say Steph's one of the bosses," says Victor Hall, a New York City teacher and coach who calls the private hoops lessons he offers through the app a "thriving" side business.

Across the U.S., the rise in travel teams has led to the kind of facilities arms race once reserved for big colleges and the pros. Cities and towns are using tax money to build or incentivize play-and-stay mega-complexes, betting that the influx of visitors will lift the local economy.

That was the thinking in Westfield, Ind., which was hunting for ways to expand the commercial tax base of the small city some 20 miles north of downtown Indianapolis. "We wondered, Is it conceivable to create an industry around family travel sports?" says mayor Andy Cook. Concluding that it was, Westfield issued $70 million in bonds to build Grand Park Sports Campus, a 400-acre complex that opened in 2014 and includes 31 grass and synthetic fields for soccer, lacrosse and other field sports, 26 softball and baseball diamonds, and a 370,000-square-foot indoor facility. The city is hoping that tax revenue generated by new hotels, retail outlets and medical facilities near the park will eventually pay off the debt.

Westfield officials had considered attempting to draw a minor-league baseball team to the city. "That gives you some prestige," says Cook. "But it's not really our moneymaker. Our moneymaker is regional tournaments, under 16 years of age. Because they bring Mom, Dad, brother, sister, grandparents."

The pioneer of this trend is the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex, which opened in 1997 on the grounds of Disney World in Orlando. The 220-acre venue allows Disney to collect revenue from tournament fees, hotel stays and theme-park tickets, while giving it another way to win the hearts--and future wallets--of its youngest customers. Business is thriving. Wide World of Sports hosted 385,285 athletes in 2016, up 28% since 2011.

Sometime this winter, the Sports KingDome, a facility with 347,000 sq. ft. of indoor space--enough to fit a dozen multisport fields, or six Little League baseball fields--is slated to open on the site of a former IBM campus in East Fishkill, N.Y., some 70 miles north of New York City. It will become one of the largest domes on the planet, and the owner plans to auction naming rights to the highest bidder. The $25 million, all-weather complex will allow families in the populous northeastern U.S. to play travel soccer, lacrosse and baseball 12 months a year, just like they do in the Sun Belt.

Melanie Barcenas, 9, practicing in her San Diego backyard, hopes to follow in the footsteps of the superstar Neymar. “He plays just like me,” she says. Melanie plays multiple soccer games most weekends. To save money, her family stays in a hotel only if a game is more than a four-hour drive from home.

Would that be so bad? Many families say they enjoy the travel-sports experience. Parents bond with one another. Kids make new friends. "We have friends and family tell us that it's too much, too soon," says Jerry Martinez, Luke's father. "But this is his passion. I'm not going to stomp on it."

There are mounting concerns, however, over the consequences of such intensity, particularly at young ages. The average number of sports played by children ages 6 to 17 has dipped for three straight years, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association. In a study published in the May issue of American Journal of Sports Medicine, University of Wisconsin researchers found that young athletes who participated in their primary sport for more than eight months in a year were more likely to report overuse injuries.

Intense specialization can also tax minds. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, "burnout, anxiety, depression and attrition are increased in early specializers." The group says delaying specialization in most cases until late adolescence increases the likelihood of athletic success.

Devotion to a single sport may also be counterproductive to reaching that holy grail: the college scholarship. In a survey of 296 NCAA Division I male and female athletes, UCLA researchers discovered that 88% played an average of two to three sports as children.

Other consequences are more immediate. As expensive travel teams replace community leagues, more kids are getting shut out of organized sports. Some 41% of children from households earning $100,000 or more have participated in team sports, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association. In households with income of $25,000 or less, participation is 19%.

One weekend in early June, all eyes were on Joey Baseball. "Is that him?" a rival player asked his coach. Yes, indeed, it was Joey Erace of southern New Jersey in the flesh, warming up on a field in the town of Sulphur, La., where he had flown to play for the Texas Bombers at a regional tournament.

In addition to Joey, the Bombers imported two star players from California and a power hitter from Mexico, who smacked a moonshot home run in a preliminary-round game. Bombers coach Lale Esquivel, who won the College World Series at the University of Miami in 1999, makes no apologies for running his team like a professional outfit. "I can see talent at a young age," Esquivel says. "My son is special. I want to surround him with the best kids from across the country. In return, playing on my team is going to help your son. Do we win? Of course we win. If I'm going to be investing all this time and money, we might as well win."

Still, amid the plane rides, autograph requests and high-pressure tournaments, there are moments when things lurch into perspective. At one point during the weekend in Louisiana, Joe Erace tucked Joey's pants in for him and paused. "Sometimes when I'm getting on him a bit," he says, "my wife reminds me that Joey still thinks a big fat guy in a red suit delivers presents all around the world."

--With reporting by ABIGAIL ABRAMS AND TARA JOHNSON/NEW YORK

The Rush To Win: Development or Injury?

In my last blog I featured an article from Tony Caldwell titled “How can we make more money from impressionable teenage boys?”

In the recent Bio-Genesis scandal that included Alex Rodriguez and other pro athletes, the investigators for the prosecution found client lists that showed the overwhelming majority of athletes who bought steroids and Performance Enhancing Drugs were teenage boys.

This is NOT an isolated case involving Florida. Read Jeff Beckham’s article that follows this intro to better understand the variety of reasons PED’s are a REAL danger to teenage boys.

For my part, I find that as Sports Science has become a major tool for Professional Sports Teams, more companies are marketing high tech measuring devices, fast acting supplements and high tech workout apparel that promises improvement in performances.  It is the FAST TRACK to success in improving performance that is all the rage.

I don’t think I am far off when I make the assessment that even at the youth sport level there is NO PATIENCE when it comes to looking for improvements to sport performance.  Instead of developing a solid base of foundational movement skills and exposing young athletes to a variety of sports,  the trend is to SPECIALIZE and “employ personal coaching” to SPEED UP the process.

In my humble opinion, after 40 years of coaching/teaching at all levels, the  MOST BENEFICIAL method to developing youngsters lies in the following basic equation:  movement deficiency = strength deficiency = power deficiency = performance deficiency. Improve movement first!

Of course, this makes too much sense. In a culture where pre-school curriculum mirrors what third or fourth graders in my day learned and quality education is based on being able to utilize iPads as soon as possible, it is no wonder that parents are COMPETING to get their 8 year olds an advantage in school and sport.

Have your kids take Calculus before Algebra!  Hire a Strength Coach to get them lifting and loading their spines before they even have proper movement skills or postural integrity.

My take is simply this:  ALLOW YOUNGSTERS TO RUN, JUMP, CRAWL, LAND, SKIP, CLIMB, BALANCE, ETC. at their own rate!  Allow them to try as many sports as possible. Teach and reinforce proper POSTURE. When it comes to competitive sports for those under the age of 12 adopt the following rules: 1) LESS IS MORE, 2) PLAY SHOULD BE FUN and 3) IMPROVEMENT IS SUCCESS!

It is also important to remember that the development of the WHOLE PERSON depends more on the PROCESS of education whether it is on the field or court or in the classroom. IF IT IS A RACE TO BE THE BEST AT THE EARLIEST THEN the culture described in the article below will continue to be a real danger to our young athletes.

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Growth Hormone Usage Rises Among Teens

• By Jeff Beckham  

Friday nights in the fall mean high school football. But that wholesome slice of Americana also contains a dark undercurrent–a marked rise in the use of human growth hormone by high school aged students.

In a recent survey of 3,705 kids, 11 percent of teens in grades 9 through 12 reported having used synthetic human growth hormone without a prescription. That means that at any high school football game, it’s likely that at least two players on the field will have tried human growth hormone.
And it’s not just athletes who reported having used HGH. The survey, carried out by the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids and funded by a grant from the MetLife Foundation, found no statistically significant difference in the athletic involvement between synthetic HGH users and non-users.
Sports doping scandals have been dominated by steroids for many years, and the study confirmed a gradual, long-term increase in teens’ reported lifetime use of steroids. Steroid use among teens has increased from 5 percent in 2009 to 7 percent in 2013. But the latest percentage of reported HGH use is more than double the previous year.
Even though he called the numbers “alarming,” the news didn’t surprise Travis Tygart, the CEO of the US Anti-Doping Agency, the organization charged with managing the anti-doping program for all Olympic sports in the United States.

“The pressures to win at every level of our sports today are incredible,” Tygart said. “And you can see young kids in high school, who maybe have a hope and a prayer for a financial scholarship to go to college or maybe just so their parents can brag at the office, the pressures that are put on them to win by any means necessary. It’s ripe for them to use these drugs in order to gain an advantage.”
Synthetic HGH has been available since 1985 and is prescribed to treat growth disorders in children, hormone growth deficiency in adults and muscle-wasting disease associated with HIV/AIDS. Without a prescription, it can be used to pack on muscle.
That’s where younger athletes may take cues from their professional heroes. Major League Baseball was the first of the major U.S. sports leagues to introduce in-season testing for HGH, but other sports have been slower to react. In September, the National Football League came to an agreement with its players union on a drug policy that includes HGH testing, but the negotiations took three years.

“Kids in our country idolize the players, and the lack of leadership and no testing for HGH in the NFL has been hurtful to the fight for clean athletes’ rights and the integrity of the sport,” Tygart said. “It is ridiculous that it has taken this long for the HGH test to be put into place, and while it is a good first step, the proof will really come from how it is put into practice.”
Even for non-athletes, the spike in the reported use of HGH can be tied to societal pressure. A study in the January issue of JAMA Pediatrics found that nearly 18 percent of adolescent boys were highly concerned about their weight and physique. And boys were as likely to feel pressure to gain weight and muscle as to lose weight.

Young women aren’t immune to HGH’s marketing efforts as a way to obtain a perfect body, according to the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids survey. The difference between the proportions of teen boys and teen girls who reported using synthetic HGH (12 percent vs. 9 percent) was not statistically significant.

Prescription HGH is expensive, with daily injections at a cost between $125 and $250 a week. Even non-prescription HGH runs a few hundred dollars for a month’s supply, and even then, buyers can’t be sure what they’re getting. Supplements and powders that claim to include HGH are easy to find online and in fitness stores, but those are regulated by the Federal Trade Commission, rather than the Food and Drug Administration, with a different level of scrutiny applied.
“People believe that if it’s on the shelf it must be OK,” said Steve Pasierb, president and CEO of the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids. “But these are only ever taken off the market if they’re proven harmful. Whereas a drug or food product has to first be proven effective before it goes on the market. The public doesn’t understand that nuance. It’s an important one, but they don’t understand it.”

There were some rays of hope in the study. Only 8 percent of teens agreed that using performance-enhancing substances in sports was OK “if it’s the only way to win,” and this percentage has continuously declined over the past five years.

Pasierb said that could be an opening for parents to talk with their kids about the risks of HGH. His group’s research shows that kids who live in households where parents reinforce the health dangers of drugs tend to use in lower levels than their peers who don’t hear that at home.
“Parents think they have no power,” Pasierb said. “But in the end, disappointing your parents is one of the key reasons kids don’t use. It’s higher than whether it’s illegal or anything like that. I often say to folks, ‘Your kids want to push you to the wall but they don’t want to push you that next step. They don’t want to lose your love and respect. They’ll make you nuts, but they don’t want to lose

EAT, SLEEP, TRAIN! The Safe & Legal Performance Enhancers

My last blog post of a few days ago was intended to start parents, athletes and coaches to be more aware of the total amount of minerals, vitamins, electrolytes, herbal substances and various supplements that young athletes are consuming on a daily basis. I also included the website of noted Sports Scientist Asker Jeukendrup (mysportscience.com) as a great resource instead of sites that are supported by energy drink or supplement companies. 

So, to continue my efforts on awakening parents, coaches and young athletes of the potential dangers existing with teenage athletes,  I am presenting two great articles. 

Tony Caldwell, noted Powerlifting and Bodybuilding Coach  presents his take on how easy it is for teenage boys to get caught up in steroid and/ or Testosterone-HGH use as well as informative information on  how to use proper nutrition to aid strength training  for teenagers.

The article that follows is yet another piece of important research on the IMPORTANCE OF SLEEP. I have included a lot of information on the IMPORTANCE OF SLEEP TO TESTOSTERONE PRODUCTION for teenagers. This is the latest of the many projects that have also shown that lack of sleep leads to injuries as well for teenagers. BOTH DIET AND SLEEP are  the best and safest ways to enhance training, sports performance, academic performance and injury prevention!

READ On!!

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"How can we make more money from impressionable teenage boys?"

Is a question equipment manufacturers in the 1950s asked. Today, sports supplement companies make a fortune by selling products that promise short cuts and quick gains to young males with low self- esteem.
Tony Caldwell has been training in powerlifting and bodybuilding for 50 years, here he gives his thoughts on supplementation.

The first sports supplements

I have been involved in lifting weights for almost 50 years as a rugby player, powerlifter and bodybuilder.
During that time I have seen massive changes in the field of nutrition for athletes from the beer and potatoes regime of the early strongmen (before my time I might add) to the supercharged (and super priced) products of today as touted in just about every sports magazine in circulation. 

First a little history. Back in the 1950s in the USA strength sports such as Olympic lifting, powerlifting and especially bodybuilding were in their infancy. There were two major companies producing weight training equipment: the York Barbell Co. from York PA and the Weider organisation based at that time in New Jersey. Both sold barbells, dumbells, benches etc through the magazines they published, York's “Strength & Health” and Weider's “Mr America” . 

Fairly early on both companies realised that not only did they not get many repeat orders for weight sets but the shipping costs for the ones that they did sell were high, thus cutting down the profit margins.

Then someone came up with the bright idea of food supplements, initially protein. These products were cheap to manufacture, usually being a mixture of skim milk powder and soy (yummy!) and could be sold at a greatly inflated price thus increasing company profits overnight.
They were then advertised in the magazines endorsed by either a top lifter or champion bodybuilder and given names like “Hi-Proteen” and Energol which was just overpriced wheat germ oil (York) and Weider's Hi Protein (note the subtle spelling?)

Pumping Iron and steroids

In the 60s and 70s the hype and advertising,not to mention the proliferation of new and more outrageously named products exploded to the point where no self respecting strength athlete would take in any less than 300 gms of protein per day.

Naturally this did not produce a whole generation of people who looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger or could press double bodyweight overhead.
The superbly developed athletes in the magazines achieved this look and power not by ingesting vast amounts of “Crash Weight Gain #7” but by taking copious quantities of anabolic steroids.
Until the late 1960s these were quite legal in the USA, although obviously banned by all the major sports and their governing bodies.

Today we have more supplement companies than Bob Hoffman the founder of York Barbell Co. or Joe Weider could ever possibly have envisaged. They sell products ranging from pretty effective to downright worthless but all expensive.

How to get strong through eating

The first requisite when planning an athlete's nutrition programme is to initially discount supplements and concentrate primarily on real food.

This should feature the correct ratios of protein, carbohydrates and fats obtained from natural sources lean meats, eggs, dairy, fresh fruit and vegetables and whole grains. The athlete's current goals need to be considered when planning a personalised eating regime.

US strength coach Dan John has a simplified approach to eating, namely eat protein at every meal, eat vegetables and take fish oils. This is a pretty good point at which to start (I have pointed out to Dan that it is the oily fish, rather than the fish oils that provide health benefits, see British Medical Journal review here James).

If you feel extra protein is needed then before purchasing look at the ingredients, sometimes unwelcome extra sugars are added in order to improve the taste although there are several brands which are both pleasant to take and don't contain anything you don't want.
Personally I do take a whey protein shake after training plus I use a multi- vitamin and mineral supplement formulated for men. hey I'm 67 I need all the help I can get. This turns my urine a pleasant shade of bright yellow. I also use fish oils which I buy by the bucketload online from a company called Myprotein.

What about creatine or testosterone boosters?

Apart from protein the one supplement I have found to definitely give noticeable results is creatine.
Taken as directed over a 6 week cycle should result in improvements in strength and muscle size providing the training stimulus is intensive enough to trigger a positive reaction.
There are minimal side effects to longer periods of use but it appears that after about 6 weeks the effects seem to diminish so probably 2 cycles per year would be the optimum programme.  
Another area of interest is the large array of so called testosterone enhancers or boosters. I personally have tried a number of these and have found them to be largely ineffective.

These products tend to contain ingredients such as Tribulus, Fenugreek or Tongkat Ali, but usually in not enough quantity to have much effect. The main worry for athletes is that there exists a distinct possibility that a positive drug test could result from usage of these supplements.
They are often touted, amongst other things as libido enhancers, however a 25 year old athlete who needs help in that area should probably see his doctor!
To recap by all means consider using supplements but remember by definition that is precisely what they are. They are no substitute for a well planned eating programme.
Give sports drinks companies more money by:

• taking a pre- workout energy bar
• sipping on a carb drink whilst training
• finishing with a high calorie protein and carbohydrate concoction at the conclusion of the workout

thus ingesting about 3 times the energy expended during the training session.

Summary

The final thing to remember before jumping in and purchasing the latest super duper product promising gains “beyond your wildest dreams” is that this stuff is usually very inexpensive to manufacture and will be sold at a large profit to a market targeting young impressionable athletes.
The only thing that will produce “steroid-like results” is a steroid. Leave 'em alone!!
My recommendation would be  a good quality multi vitamin/mineral tablet and maybe whey protein. The bottom line though is EAT!!!

I hope that this information is of help to athletes and their coaches when putting together a nutrition plan. 
Tony Caldwell
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Chronic lack of sleep is associated with increased sports injuries in adolescent athletes.

Authors

Milewski MD¹, Skaggs DL, Bishop GA, Pace JL, Ibrahim DA, Wren TA, Barzdukas A.

Journal….J Pediatr Orthop. 2014 Mar;34(2):129-33. doi: 10.1097/BPO.0000000000000151.

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Much attention has been given to the relationship between various training factors and athletic injuries, but no study has examined the impact of sleep deprivation on injury rates in young athletes. Information about sleep practices was gathered as part of a study designed to correlate various training practices with the risk of injury in adolescent athletes.

METHODS: Informed consent for participation in an online survey of training practices and a review of injury records was obtained from 160 student athletes at a combined middle/high school (grades 7 to 12) and from their parents. Online surveys were completed by 112 adolescent athletes (70% completion rate), including 54 male and 58 female athletes with a mean age of 15 years (SD=1.5; range, 12 to 18 y). The students' responses were then correlated with data obtained from a retrospective review of injury records maintained by the school's athletic department.

RESULTS: Multivariate analysis showed that hours of sleep per night and the grade in school were the best independent predictors of injury. Athletes who slept on average <8 hours per night were 1.7 times (95% confidence interval, 1.0-3.0; P=0.04) more likely to have had an injury compared with athletes who slept for ≥8 hours. For each additional grade in school, the athletes were 1.4 times more likely to have had an injury (95% confidence interval, 1.2-1.6; P<0.001).

CONCLUSION: Sleep deprivation and increasing grade in school appear to be associated with injuries in an adolescent athletic population. Encouraging young athletes to get optimal amounts of sleep may help protect them against athletic injuries.